Unending drift

POLITICS is all about ideas and ideals, to be argued and understood through a process of grand dialogue; but top Indian politicians now prefer the comfort, distance and brevity of social media monologues, where abuses and adulation replace arguments, conveniently leaving complex issues unaddressed. Worse, the Covid pandemic has reduced even the routine press conferences to webinars with the Internet speed deciding the intensity of the interaction. It is in this context that Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s newspaper article triggers a debate about the efficacy of the Central government’s response to the Covid-induced economic crisis.

Sonia is correct in assessing that the best poverty alleviation instrument available to the BJP-led government — MGNREGA — is a Congress legacy. But she is wrong in claiming that the employment guarantee scheme has radically transferred power to the poorest people. The Indian poor remains powerless, though MGNREGA is still the best security net woven by Indian politicians for those who might fall into the bottomless pit of starvation deaths. That the government has increased the overall allocation for MGNREGA to over Rs 1 lakh crore is again a validation of the Congress’ success in listening to the voices of the people’s movements in 2004, while preparing its poll manifesto.

But now, more than the ruling BJP, the Congress needs to listen to the voices of the people, activists, its own workers, leaders, et al. The anchorless Congress is drifting in choppy waters with no compass nor a captain. It is no longer the Grand Old Party, which can float back to power by just biding its time in Opposition. It is a small party of smaller means with no defined party programme for agitational politics nor mobilising skills. The catastrophic economic contraction and the resulting misery of the lower and middle classes offer an objective political situation suitable for change. But an organisation with a proxy president and a proxy parliamentary party leader will never be able to seize this opportunity. Looking at the present predicament, Sonia seems more of an accidental politician than an organisational wizard credited with two Lok Sabha victories.